Trying a board game intervention on children with autism spectrum disorder in Macau: how do they react?

Abstract

Limited special education and related services are available for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in Macau, especially those who are educated in general education classrooms. No intervention study has been conducted on these children. This study was conducted to explore the relationship between a board game play intervention and board game play behaviors and social communication of children with ASD educated in general education classrooms in Macau. A repeated measures design was used and the results of this study showed the mean occurrence of unprompted board game play behaviors per session during intervention was not significantly different from that during pre- or post-intervention. The mean occurrence of social communication per session during intervention was significantly higher than that during pre- and post-intervention. These findings suggest a positive relationship existed between the board game intervention used in this study and social communication of children with ASD.

Keywords:

• Autism Spectrum Disorder
• social communication
• board game
• play
• Macau

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.